Plaster drying time?

Question:I'm building a sculpture using a lot of plastic tubing and plaster of paris. I've used plaster a lot before, but always on flat canvases and the like, I haven't done a lot of casting before. The biggest chunk would probably be the face, I used a mask for it, so the whole depth of the mask is full, as well as about 3 inches up. I finished packing the plaster in last night (I had to do it in batches). So at this point it's been drying about 6 hours. It's still cold, so it's obviously still pushing a lot of moisture out, so I'm pretty sure if I was to pull it out now it would completely crumble. I have 3 days to finish this, how long do you think before it will be completely dry?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I'm building a sculpture using a lot of plastic tubing and plaster of paris. I've used plaster a lot before, but always on flat canvases and the like, I haven't done a lot of casting before. The biggest chunk would probably be the face, I used a mask for it, so the whole depth of the mask is full, as well as about 3 inches up. I finished packing the plaster in last night (I had to do it in batches). So at this point it's been drying about 6 hours. It's still cold, so it's obviously still pushing a lot of moisture out, so I'm pretty sure if I was to pull it out now it would completely crumble. I have 3 days to finish this, how long do you think before it will be completely dry?

Plaster gets hot then gets cold. You can judge its strength with a finger nail. You can drive off some of the moisture with a box with a 100 watt bulb or use an oven that will hold about 200F either should dry it considerably in a day.